Sunday, December 20, 2009

Weekend Review

In an effort to slow down as we near the Christmas Day, we decided to stay home all weekend and do as close to nothing as we possibly could. I think we were pretty successful.

On Saturday we woke up late (and when I say we, I mean Mark and the boys, since as a mom I am biologically unable to sleep past 6:15am) and had a big breakfast complete with pancakes, eggs, hash browns, and fruit. Then we went on a family walk to the high school down the street so the boys could ride their bikes over the speed bumps in the parking lot, which is one of the great joys in their lives. Then we returned home, put a fire in the fireplace, and read books on the couch for awhile. Actually, we just read Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel three times. After this, we built and decorated a gingerbread train. It was sticky, sugary good fun. Afterwards, I put the finished train on top of the stove and told the boys not to touch it (yes, our children still need to be told not to touch things on top of the stove). As I walked away I heard Tommy telling Ben in a very serious tone "We can't touch. I'm letting it dry. It needs pribacy."

After the boys went down for a nap, I made sugar cookies from scratch broke apart pre-made, pre-cut "Christmas Shape" sugar cookies and baked them, so the boys and I could decorate them later in the day. Sugar cookies are Mark's favorite and I had planned to make them from scratch, like I do every year at this time, but Christmas week snuck up out of nowhere and I decided my time would be more wisely spent outside of the kitchen, rather than spending half a day rolling, cutting, freezing, and re-rolling cookies. After the cookies were done baking, I did something unprecedented and watched a movie during naptime by myself.

After nap time we went to the playground, then came home and watched a tractor plow the field across the street for about fifteen minutes. It was in that moment of watching my boys so intently watch the tractor do its work that I glad we had no plans and nowhere to rush off to. When it was too dark to watch the tractor anymore, we went inside and decorated cookies while Mark made us a yummy dinner of Trader Joe's orange chicken and rice.

On Sunday we went to church and had lunch with friends afterwards. Then we returned home and put the boys down for a late (and long) nap, and I made myself a nest of blankets on the couch and dug into a new book I was given at church as an unexpected Christmas present called The Thought of God. After naps and dinner, we drove around town to look at Christmas lights. Tommy told us "I love a lot, a lot, a lot of Christmas lights!" In all, it was a very relaxing, enjoyable and mellow weekend.

There are two drainage vents in the field at Nordstrom Park. The boys realized that they could yell to each other through the vents, like the "phone" funnels at the playground.